ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Thursday, January 18, 1996             TAG: 9601180095
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL   PAGE: A-5  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: Associated Press 

SHEIK GETS LIFE FOR TERROR PLOT CONSPIRATORS TARGETED U.N., TUNNELS IN N.Y.

Professing their innocence, Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman and nine followers were handed long prison sentences Wednesday for plotting to blow up the United Nations, FBI offices, highway tunnels and other New York-area landmarks in a single day of terror.

Abdel-Rahman, a militant Muslim cleric and the spiritual leader of the conspiracy, delivered a long, impassioned speech in Arabic before he was sentenced to a mandatory term of life without parole.

``This case is nothing but an extension of the American war against Islam,'' he told U.S. District Judge Michael Mukasey through an interpreter.

Of the cleric's followers, the judge came down hardest on El Sayyid Nosair, sentencing him to life in prison for his role in the bomb plot and for killing militant anti-Arab Rabbi Meir Kahane in a New York hotel in 1990.

``Because of the bombing of the World Trade Center, the government made up this case,'' complained Nosair, who had been acquitted of the murder in state court before being charged with the assassination as part of the conspiracy.

Eight other defendants received prison terms of up to 57 years for planning what prosecutors called a ``war of urban terrorism'' aimed at altering U.S. policy in the Middle East.

Nosair's cousin Ibrahim A. El-Gabrowny, 45, received 57 years for the conspiracy and other charges, including possession of bogus passports and visas intended to get Nosair out of the country after a jailbreak.

Seven other defendants received prison terms of 25 to 35 years.

The sentencing came nearly two years after the convictions of four men in the World Trade Center bombing, which killed six people and injured more than 1,000. The conspirators in the terror plot were not directly charged in that bombing but were accused of being part of the organization that carried it out.

LENGTH: Short :   46 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  AP. Kaukab Siddique (center) shouts support for Sheik 
          Omar Abdel-Rahman outside the U.S. Courthouse in Manhattan on 
          Wednesday.